D-Jump is a cancelled platform / action game that was in development in 1997 / 1998 by Ubisoft Paris, planned to be released for the “next gen consoles” Dreamcast and Playstation 2, and also PC. It seems that the project was canned after 1 year and half of development, but there are just few info available. Derboo was able to find an article about D-Jump! in PowerPlay magazine issue 8/1998, in which we can see a couple of target renders. As we can read at IGN:
Starring a nimble “Rastafarian” lead character, D-Jump! blends action and platforming elements with a storyline based on time travel. Players must traverse several time periods to unlock the mystery of why their character is slowly turning into wood. Originally scheduled for release as a launch title for the PlayStation 2, D-Jump was later cancelled for unknown reasons.
Thanks to derboo, Jorge and Isatis_Angel for the scans and to Nattie for her help in preserving more screens from their lost game!
One of the below scan is from Games Republic issue3.
UPDATE:
Seems that while the main development version was for PC, initially the game could have been also planned for N64. A preview with more real-time screenshots are in fact found in GamePlay 64 issue 9. I’ve added to the gallery a couple real-time screenshots that show the game in a much late state of development with the bright and cartoony style (and some other renders/concept arts). Additionally I’ve added a brief trailer below.
Marcel sent us a couple of screens from an early version of Aerogauge, an F-Zero clone that was released in 1997 for the Nintendo 64. It seems that the HUD was different, but as we never played the final game, we dont know if there are other interesting beta differences. Maybe someone else will be able to notice more differences!
A video from the retail version, the same stage: we can notice the hud changes and different textures. The “car” seems almost the same as the beta version
Jack and the Beanstalk was a game being developed for the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive. It was originally advertised in February 1995, but was not heard of again until February 1998, when more details of the game’s development emerged. However, the game was never released, and very little is known about its specific operation.
Presumably this intriguing game was similar in plot or gameplay to the traditional fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Unfortunately, we will probably never know for sure.
As Jack slept, the beans germinated in the soil, and by morning a gigantic beanstalk grew in their place. When Jack saw the huge beanstalk, he immediately decided to climb it. He arrived in a land high up in the clouds that happened to be the home of a giant.
Jack and the Beanstalk was being developed on the second floor of the Nintendo Kanda building, under the supervision of HAL Laboratories, by a team of ten or more employees, lead by Youichi (Yoichi) Yamamoto. Yamamoto, originally a construction designer, was one of several non-video game-industry personnel selected to work on the project by a panel of four important Nintendo figures: Shigesato Itoi, Satoshi Iwata, Kouichi Nakamura and Shigeru Miyamoto himself. It is not clear why Nintendo specifically sought out professionals from other fields to work on Jack and the Beanstalk.
The game was slated as being a brand new type of video game, and one that utilised the features of the N64DD to their full extent. Although the game was never completed, many of its flagship features eventually found their way into different games, such as Pokémon Snap and EarthBound 64.
“Originally, Pokémon Snap for the Nintendo 64 system wasn’t a Pokémon game,” recalls Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, “but rather a normal game in which you took photos, but the motivation for playing the game wasn’t clear.” […] Game designer Masanobu Yamamoto was working on Pokémon Snap, and he initially had a negative reaction to the addition of Pokémon, because the characters replaced what he was working on. “That time, adopting the Pokémon world clarified what we should do and the direction we should head,” Yamamoto adds, “and I came to like Pokémon, so I felt like that had saved us.”
As noted by Andy, in the intro of Pokemon Snap, along with the “HAL”, “Nintendo” logos, we can see the text “Jack and Beans”:
From the credit list on Mobygames, JACK and BEANS seems to have been the name of the main team behind the game, which director was the same Yamamoto that lead the Jack and Beanstalk project:
JACK and BEANS
Director: Yoichi Yamamoto, Koji Inokuchi, Akira Takeshima
Other possible features that were taken from Jack and the Beanstalk, could have been evolved in EarthBound 64 (a game that was also cancelled), as the N64DD’s internal clock was to be used to allow the real-time growth of planted in-game seeds. This mechanic seems to stem (excuse the pun) from Jack and the Beanstalk. It is also likely that the 3-day system system used in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is similar to how time would have been used in Jack and the Beanstalk. It is listed under “Simulation” in various N64 unreleased listings, which supports the idea of the player growing his or her own seed or seeds.
Thanks to Redstar and Celine for the contributions!
Sadly there are no images of Jack and the Beanstalk preserved for now.
Known in japanese as IKAZUCHI NO GO TOKU (or Kaminari no Gotoku: Choukousoku Igo) this was a simulation based on the ancient board game “Go” for Nintendo 64. Developed by specialist Toyogo Inc, that despite the name was an american company based in Lexington Massachusetts, the game title appeared in Edge magazine issue 41‘s japanese N64 release list with a planned release date for January ’97.
Seta Corporation, Like Thunder ‘Go’ publisher, never released it for unknown reasons thus negating to japanese N64 players the only Go simulation for the system.
Image taken from EGM issue 90, article written by Celine!
Cabbage is an unfinished pet breeding/raising game, originally intended for release on the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive. It was being developed by Shigesato Itoi (responsible for the Earthbound series) and Tsunekazu Ishihara (producer of the Pokémon series), as well as Shigeru Miyamoto himself. Unfortunately, the game never reached completion for various reasons.
In Cabbage, players were given the task of raising a creature (exactly what type of creature was never revealed). They were able (amongst other tasks) to buy it things, and feed it. The game concept was very unique in a number of ways. For example, it would have utilized the N64DD’s internal clock in order to keep the virtual world functioning even while the console was turned off. This meant that a player could potentially leave the house for a few hours, and find that his or her creature had evolved and changed considerably in his or her absence.
To enable more portability, and constant monitoring of the Cabbage creature, the game would also have been linkable to the Game Boy via a special converter. The creature could be downloaded to the Game Boy, where it could remain with (and be nurtured by) the player throughout the day, before being transferred back to the home console whenever the player chose. Creatures would also have been able to visit other owners’ virtual worlds. Itoi mentioned that he was looking for an “explosive” idea for the game, something that would have been different to what everyone had expected.
Additionally, it was planned that extra game sets would be released, that would contain different toys and gameplay elements for Cabbage to interact with (including swings, slides and ponds), as well as additional “events” for Cabbage to explore. Miyamoto has even said that players would have been able to copy their creature’s toys onto blank disks to share with friends. However, he has provided conflicting information as to whether these expansions would have taken the form of N64DD disks, or Game Boy cartridges.
Although Cabbage was meant to be playable at Space World 2000, no demo ever surfaced. Miyamoto claims that Itoi and Ishihara got too busy to work on the project, and so it was dropped. He also says that many elements of the would-be Cabbage eventually made it into other titles, such as Nintendogs. Cabbage also seems to possess many similarities with the published Animal Crossing (which was, in turn, an updated version of Animal Forest for the N64). Perhaps, following the low popularity of the N64DD, Cabbage had to be converted to a less-ambitious title. Hopefully Cabbage will, in some form, eventually see the light of day.
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